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CULTURE 



A POEM 



DELIVERKU BEFORE THE 



MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, 



AT THE ODE ON, IN BOSTON. 



OCTOBER 3, 1843, 



BY GEORGE LUNT, „ 

Honoran' Member of the Association. 



r - 






BOSTON: 

WILLIAM D. TICKNOR & COMPANY 

Comer of Washington and Sch.ool Streets. 
MDCCCXLIII. 



T 



GEORGE COOLIDGE, PRINTER; 
57 Washington Street. 



TO THE MEMBERS 



BOSTON MRCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, 

The ■vry purposes of whose institution prove their interest in higher objects than the mere 

accumvilation of wealth, and who well exemplify the character of a City. 

always distinguished for cultivation and liberality, 

DELIVERED AT THEIR REQUEST, 

"Written under the deep conviction, that the sentiments it inculcates cam, in no city or time, be 

wholly out of place, and published in the firm hope that it may bear no ineffectual 

testimony against an age eminently worldly and unspiritual, 

IS INSCRIBED, 
WITH GREAT RESPECT AXD ESTEEM, 
BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



' For a Satire, as it was born out of a Tragedy, so ought to resemble his 
parentage ; to strike high and adventure dangerously at the most eminent 
vices among the greatest persons ; and not lo creep into every blind tap- 
house, that fears a constable more than a Satire.' — Milton. Apology, \c. 



Oh, it is false I we are not stocks and stones, 
Nor virtue is not yet that fabled thing 
That folly would persuade us. Still on high. 
Great .Justice, in his chancel throned snpreme, 
Notes our offences for the day of doom I 

New Play. 



1# 



PREFACE. 



It was long ago alleged by Mr. Pope, that his chiefest am- 
bition was to be a successful writer of philosophical poetry ; 
regarding it in fact, as the highest style of human composition. 
The exact degree of coincidence between his aspirations and 
his essays the world has never yet fully agreed upon. The 
reasonableness of the existing doubts on this subject, is, I fear, 
justified by the fact, that Mr. Pope, with a more honest purpose 
than many other moral philosophers, (so called,) was himself 
partially deceived, and undertook to build upon ^ stubble ' a 
superstructure, which can be substantially raised and sustained 
only on a very ditferent sort of foundation. 

In regard to his estimate of the true value of philosophical 
poetry, when any poetry is to be considered valuable, I believe 
him to be perfectly correct. Since moral excellence is mani- 
festly the object of human existence, that species of writing 
which best exhibits and enforces our duties and allures to their 
fulfilment, must be our most valuable study. The more attrac- 
tive this can be rendered to those likely to profit by its lessons, 
through those charms of language and graces of illustration 
which poetry supplies, the more excellent it must become. 
The production of this kind of composition in its highest de- 
gree, requires many important qualifications ; a knowledge of 
life, the capacity to analyze it correctly, and that power of tlis- 



Vm PREFACE. 

crimination between right and wrong, which is by no means so 
common a gift as is generally imagined. Originally, in Para- 
dise, man knew only the Good. Having unlawfully sought to 
distinguish between this and Evil, till then unknown, his acqui- 
sition has been a source of perplexity and misery to him ever 
since. It was, however, by their superior ability to illustrate 
this great interest that poets first acquired their prophetic style ; 
and it may be fairly concluded that they have latterly lost much 
of their influence upon societ}-^, by neglecting their high calling 
in the pursuit of meaner objects, and hy prophesying smooth 
things to a world, which it is their business to spiritualize instead 
of conforming themselves lO its unideal requirements. It may 
be the part of a novelist to describe life as it is ; it is the duty 
of a poet to present it as it ought to be. The gift of imagina- 
tion is an exalted endowment; closely allied to Faith, if not 
one of its principal component parts, and chiefly employed to a 
worthy end, only in developing and encouraging the best emo- 
tions and faculties of our nature. Especially in an age profess- 
edly ' practical,' which, if it mean any thing, means an age de- 
voted more or less exclusively to objects of the merest worldly 
interest, it would seem to become the poet to say something, if 
he has any thing to say ; and to expostulate in his sphere, 
against a too thorough devotion to pursuits, praiseworthy indeed, 
and honorable in certain aspects, but w^hich cannot of them- 
selves render life happy, society sound, or liberty permanent. 

In fact, if there be any prophetic skill left in poetry^ the 
' practical age ' only exhibits our race in its very worst of all 
possible conditions ; and I confess that I look upon the tone of 
society as having become very low, since the principle of ex- 
pediency began to vitiate our perception of Truth, and the 
spirit of utilitarianism ofl'ered us the dregs instead of the wine 
of Life. If it be inquired of me, whether I expect to amend 



PREFACE. IX 

these evils by the force of a moral poem, my reply is, that this 
is none of my concern. Our duty is, upon a suitable occasion, 
to exert our best powers for the encouragement of better influ- 
ences ; well knowing that no man can estimate the effect of his 
performances, but equally certain that whatever is in itself 
honest and true, cannot, eventually, fail of acquiring its du 
position, and executing its appropriate office. Indeed, there is 
a large class in every community, who might not listen to the 
more direct and formal application of moral truth, but whose 
sensibilities are excited, and their minds balanced by the more 
incidental promptings which poetry may be made to suggest ; 
and the poet often gives expression to many emotions, for which 
others can find no voice, but which lie nestling and uncomfort- 
able in their bosoms. 

It has been said, I know, by those who have thought but 
superficially on this subject, that 4he day of poetry has gone 
by.' For my own part, I have not so bad an opinion of the 
world as to believe it yet to have found 

In this lowest deep a lov/er deep ; 

for SO long as one pure or honorable emotion exists in the 
human heart, poetry and the things of poetry will continue to 
exercise some influence upon the character and condition of 
society. Milton, it is trae, hinted in his own day. that he 
might be 

An age too late ! 

Yet how his ovrn fame brightened long after he had bequeathed 
it to avenging Time ! and what a host of illustrious spirits have 
subsequently gTaced and elevated English literature ! What is 
called, in fact, its Augustan era, commenced, as we know, long- 
after Milton had uttered his doubtful suggestion ; and we may 



X PREFACE. 

suppose it to have been really prompted only by some reflection 
upon the stormy character of his times, or some sense of per- 
sonal misappreciation and disappointment. Mr. Burke, with a 
more observant sagacity, in one of his loftiest flights, announced 
his own era as ' the age of sophists, economists and calcula- 
tors ; ' yet the events which have convulsed Europe, since his 
time, have fairly outstripped all conception of romance, and 
perhaps may one day fill the imagination of another Homer. 

It is possible, indeed, that some great revolution, of which 
few present indications are very apparent, may take place, at 
some future period, in the moral world ; when mankind, guided 
by pure and simple truth, and dwelling in universal peace and 
love, may less require such incitements to virtue and nobleness, 
as poetry inculcates and inspires. But even then, if any devo- 
tion waft our souls to Heaven, or any love ally us only too 
closely to earth ; if there be any emotions out of the mere 
routine of necessary existence, or any desire or enterprise in- 
volving the developement of the more exalted impulses of our 
being, its heart will stir to the promptings of poetry, and its lan- 
guage utter her voice. At least, till such a period arrive, all 
coldness towards the manifestations of her spirit, only proves 
the low condition of the general sentiment and feeling, and 
requires still more earnest efforts on the part of those who look 
for the moral advancement of man, or who feel in themselves 
any promptings of etherial fire, to incite, and elevate, and cheer 
society on towards a more glorious destiny. 

In every stage of human existence, there must always be 
found a vast difference amongst individuals, in the power of 
appreciating those impressions, which the poetry of art or of 
nature is fitted to convey* We may, by a whole life of hebe- 
tude, completely close our eyes to every thing which really 



PREFACE. Xk 

constitutes the charm and beauty of life, and which has no 
little influence upon us even then, in preventing our complete 
stagnation into brute existence, A poet truly exercising his 
vocation, so far as he avails to resist or retard the downward 
tendency of his race, may be fairly regarded as a more valuable 
member of society than even a worthy packman, like Petei 
Bell, totally uninitiated into the easily explorable mysteries of 
things. 

A primrose, by the rivers brim, 

A yellow primrose was to liim, 

And it was nothing more, 

says Wordsworth's often quoted and pretty stanza. And in 
truth, it is nothing but a primrose, make the very best of it. 
But the difficulty is, that to Peter Bell's mind it is not even that. 
Were it water-colored on paper, in the best boarding-school 
fashion, it would be the same to him; or rather, in neither 
phase would he derive from it any pleasurable sensation. If 
he regarded it at all, he would perhaps in either aspect look 
upon it but as a trumpery flower, and possibly strike it down in 
wanton malice, with his packman's staff, as he journeyed on 
his way. But to what account can a poet turn this delightful 
manifestation of the bounty of Providence, in furnishing t he 
charms, as well as the mere necessaries of existence 1 The 
moment the simple flower attracts his eye, as he leisurely 
muses upon ' the river's brim,' his mind becomes, as it were, a 
sort of congregation of primroses, and the associations which 
primroses suggest. He lives, for the time, in Primrose-hall! 
To the common eye, it has, perhaps, all the attributes of color 
and shape, fit to allure a passing glance ; to him it brings ten 
thousand sister-thoughts of perfume, grace, loveliness, and 
fragihty; he is transported in imagination to the 'gardens of 
Gul in their bloom/ — or 



Xll PREFACE. 

that fair field 

Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, 
Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis 
Was gathered. 

Mortal and immortal fancies crowd upon his imagination. He 
becomes for the time, at least, a better, and in every just sense, 
therefore, a wiser man ; and he infuses, in his own way, the 
results of his speculations, into the secret or open thoughts of 
millions. Thus is life imperceptibly modified, and existence 
often controlled, wdiere such things would be least suspected of 
the most momentary influence. 

It is these things which really give the grace and charm to 
life ; which throw a veil of beauty over what might otherwise 
seem a desert, and variegate it with hill and meadow, stream, 
valley, and foliage. The world might have been made a very 
dismal place ; instead of the loveliness which surrounds us, all 
drab-colored and quaker-like, or a bare rock wdth only soil 
enough for a potato-patch ! And it were perhaps as well so, if 
we have no faculty or inclination for the enjoyment of some- 
thing better. Just so in the moral world ; it may be all cold, 
hard delving ; or we may soften and elevate our toils with the 
sweetness of imagined beauty. It is the same indisposition 
w^hich hardened Peter Bell against the primrose, which leads 
us to neglect the graces of literature. A simple flower, and the 
associations which it has recalled, have often, no doubt, preserved 
many a mind pure, amidst many inducements to contamination. 
Poetry thus awakens the slumbering sentiment of virtue in our 
bosoms. To object to it; to regard it as trifling or worse, is as 
unreasonable as to make war upon primroses ; or, like Milton's 
gloomy and desperate hero, to hate the very sunbeams which 
illuminate and gladden the face of creation. Imagination is as 
proper a quality of the mind as, I will not say, Reason, — for I 



PREFACE. Xm 

conceive the rightful spirit of Imagination to be the highest 
developement of Reason, — but as common sense employed 
about the absolute necessities of existence. And whoever has 
much experience of life, vrill conclude, that in a greater or less 
degree, it is a much more common quality of the human mind. 
Its enjoyment, therefore, its cultivation, its just exercise, about 
suitable objects and on proper occasions, would seem to be 
natural and reasonable, and whatever addresses it, in the spirit of 
truth, must be in the highest degree desirable and praiseworthy. 

There is indeed a time for all things. The reading of a page 
of the sublimest or most touching poetry may not aid us in pay- 
ing a note at the bank, any more than would the gazing at a 
flower, or a ramble in the fields just before the approach of the 
fated moment. But the very occupations enumerated may tend 
to make ns have fewer notes there, and the individual and 
society be very much the gainers in consequence. 

Let me not, however, either here or in the text, be understood 
as desiring to discourage a just attention to the ordinary pursuits 
and business of life ; in themselves honorable and necessary, 
and the administration of w^hich Providence has entrusted to us, 
as the means of developing and perfecting our intellectual and 
moral attributes. I only urge the point too frequently forgotten, 
that the world was made for man, not man for the world. And 
since experience clearly shows, that amidst the pressure of 
business and the occupations of society, especially in times so 
proverbially overwhelmed with the cares of life as our own, fair 
and just views of things beyond our daily routine scarcely find 
opportunity to suggest themselves, it is well that there should 
be some means of urging them upon our consideration.* It is 

* A man's business is to relax and enjoy sometliing natural if he expects to im- 
prove liis mind or his heart ; and of all sources of distraction, the worst is a con- 
tinual moiling like a moudie {m.o\&.)— Diary of Sir Charles Bell. 

2 



XIV PREFACE. 

well that we should be occasionally brought to the reflection 
that it is ' neither wood^ nor stones^, nor the builder's art/ which 
make up the purposes and happiness of life, any more than 
they constitute the foundations of a state. In truth, in them- 
selves considered, such things are equally and entirely worth- 
less. The achievements of art, like the beauty and majesty of 
nature, are valuable only as exciting and encouraging the 
higher manifestations of the human character. The most ex- 
quisite picture ] the marble nymph, who on aiiy tiptoe seems 
only just not to breathe and move ; the heroic loveliness, which 
stands sublime over the slaughtered Python ; what would they 
be^ except as they stir in us the irresistible sentiments and 
emotions of our souls % It is thus only that they are valuable ; 
and otherwise would be no more to us than the marbles of 
Petra to the wandering Arab. And it will be found, on consid- 
eration, that those things which are most valued in civilized 
society, owe their entire charm to a power of appreciation, 
which is fostered by the culture of our imaginative faculties, 
but which it is the tendency of a mechanical age to impair and 
finally destroy. A palace, no doubt, is intrinsically better than 
a wigwam ; yet the Egyptian plasters his hovel of mud upon 
the very friezes of Thebes : and if a diamond and a jewel of 
colored glass were offered to the choice of a Pawnee maiden, 
there can be little question that she would select the most 
worthless. Indeed it is only that these things become truly 
valuable, as they educe from us our spiritual and inward nature. 
To show that it is really the affection of the soul which en- 
larges our capacity of enjoyment, and not the result of external 
culture, which is often nothing but the merest imitation, it is 
obvious, that the possession of all that is most beautiful or mag- 
nificent, either in art or nature, does not always involve the 
faculty even of their ordinary appreciation. From the meanest 



PREFACE. XV 

Imt of the wilderness may be bom a soul, which drinks in, as it 
were, the very inward life of things, upon which the lord of 
marble pillars and staircases might gaze with unspeculative 
eyes; dead to their outward perfections, dead to their eternal 
promptings. 

I might perhaps stop here, did I not feel irresistibly impelled 
to offer a few farther remarks in illustration of some of the 
suggestions of the Poem. It is to be regretted that the former 
fashion of prefixing a sort of index or argument to peformances 
of this description has gone out of date, since it is fairly to be 
presumed, that what has cost the writer some pains to construct 
may require on the part of the reader some direction, in order 
fully to comprehend its bearing and intention. 

It would be, perhaps, running too far counter to the commonly 
received opinions of society, to allege, that, to all just and true 
interests, it may be in reality retrograding, at the very moment 
when all the world is full of congratulations upon its onward 
progress. Yet that it is possible for society to descend from the 
highest point of refinement and civilization to a state of total 
ignorance and barbarism, there are so many melancholy exam- 
ples in history, that the opinion need scarcely involve a para- 
dox. Indeed, it seems almost impossible to avoid the conviction, 
that the world has grown strangely worldly ; that much of that 
which appears best, is, in reality, fictitious; and that there is a 
sing-ular lack of qualities, sentiments, and emotions, once much 
more prominent in society; which threw over it a grace : which 
elevated its character and kept it from its natural tendency to 
utter debasement ; in fact, that many of those qualities would be 
more likely amongst us, to excite a sneer than admiration, which 
a true man might w^ell count among his most honorable endow- 
ments. 

Indeed, I think, that no one, whose mind is able to pierce 



XVI PREFACE. 

under the surface of things, can fail to perceive that there is 
something exceedingly wrong, at work upon the vital constitution 
of society ; that, in consequence of the allowances and qualifi- 
cations of ordinary existence, by means of transmitted prejudice, 
and by the daily struggle of passion and self-interest, not suffi- 
ciently alleviated by juster influences, men have contrived to a 
singular degree to mystify themselves, • deceiving and being de- 
ceived ; ' that right is not so clear to our perceptions, wrong not 
so repulsive to our convictions, as would seem to become the 
professions of ' an enlightened age.' -'^ That truth has always 
had a hard battle with error in this world we well know. To a 
philosophical inquirer into the nature of good and evil, nothing- 
can be more suprising, than that since moral and practical truth 
is obviously even for the temporal interest of mankind, virtue 
should need any enforcements to secure their deliberate obedi.- 
ence. But so it has ever been ; virtus rectorem^ ducemque desid- 
erat ; vitia sine magistro discuntur. 

But while this has been the general condition of human soci- 



* ' But our existence as a community is a different thing from our existence 
either as individuals or families ; and an advance in civilization is not necessarily 
the same thing with an advance either in happiness or virtue. It does not even 
follow, as a matter of course, that, with a more submissive obedience to the law, 
and with actually a lower amount of what the law calls crime, (if it be true,) we 
are in a more healthy condition, either socially or politically. With less crime, 
there may be more vice ; the spirit of legality, to borrow a phrase from the theolo- 
gians, may have weakened the spirit of liberty. Yet liberty and order, civilization 
and morality may in the highest degree exist together and in harmony, etc.' — Pic- 
torialHistory of England^ Vol. IV. 856. 

To this it may be added, tliat this same spirit of legality ; this formal abandon- 
ment of what some may consider open transgression, may tend to puff up the outer 
man with a strong sense of his own self-gratulatory goodness, while the inner man 
of the heart is, all the while, any tiling but what he ought to be ; so that, into the 
hoiise which the wicked spirit findeth swept and garnished, he and seven other spirits 
more wicked than himself, enter and dtvell there. 



PREFACE. XVll 

ety, it would seem certain, that in all moral excellence, (I speak 
generally,) the present period, exhibits indications of specific and 
exceeding degeneracy; that while the mind has advanced 
much in knowledge, the heart, by some strange inconsistency, 
has made rather a retrograde progress ; in fact, that the conse- 
quence of intellectual pride has been a forgetfulness of moral 
duty. And if it should be suggested to me, that Horace, in his 
day, made a similar complaint as to the progressive degeneracy 
of the times, I can only reply, that the prophecy accompanying 
the complaint was speedily and terribly fullilled.=5^ Let him, 
who will, remember Tacitus and the historians and poets of his 
age, to this point. 

And to those who remark, that this is only one of the ' phases 
of society,' and that things will eventually mend, I would mere- 
ly suggest, with great deference, that, if competent minds, under 
such circumstances, do not apply themselves to the investiga- 
tion of causes and effects ; if, instead of endeavoring to sustain 
what is good, to repress what is evil, and to present to such as 
are doubtful the motives to a right direction, they permit them- 
selves to be whirled along in the vortex, — there can be little 
hope of educing a better condition of society out of its present 
progress towards disorganization. To be what is called hopeful, 
without exerting ourselves for the melioration of things around 
us, appears to me like considering society a mere machine, and 
men in the light of puppets, controlled absolutely by some in- 
dependent and extrinsic power. But society of itself has no 
recuperative energies. It is sustained, under Providence, only 
by those who think, speak and act well. It is composed of a 
great variety of individual members, upon the virtue and intel- 
ligence of each of whom the well-being of the whole structure 
depends. Let these become corrupted, and society dissolves. 

* Carm. III. VI. 



XVIU PREFACE. 

And just in proportion to their moral soundness is the associated 
mass in a condition of health, or in a state tending to anarchy 
and dissolution. To fold our hands, therefore, and be hopeful, 
when we observe the seeds of evil springing up to the stalk, 
would be like postponing the remedy for a cold imtil it had 
become aggravated into a fever. 

In such an exigencj^, the best thing a moral writer can do, is, 
to endeavor to distinguish between the tendencies of the times 
and that which is abstractly and eternally right ; and, at least, 
not to permit the recognized standard of virtue to fall below the 
level of its native and necessary perfection. In a practical age 
this is not easy ; for just in the degree that society has deter- 
mined, that what the best and highest imaginations have pro- 
duced is unworthy their attention, it is evidence that it has, in a 
measure, shaken itself free of those sentiments and influences, 
which, more than any other human means, have averted its 
sensual and downward tendencies. And since what is called 
Imagination, which, when unadulterated, is Reason in its 
highest and best estate, has been cramped and fettered by the 
mechanical spirit of the time, yet cannot want food, as being 
an inherent quality of our nature ; it has fed upon unwholesome 
husks and chaff, while cheated of its suitable repast. But, 
since the things which are about us, and our present existence 
itself, are evanescent and, in effect, therefore, unreal ; and Im- 
agination, when it is purest, deals with our spiritual and true 
nature, it should tend to the refinement and spiritualization of 
that within us,^ which is absolutely real and permanent. 

With these preliminary remarks I submit the Poem to those 
for whose consideration it was prepared, and whose flattering 
opinions have encouraged its publication, and to the public 
award. I trust it may not prove the less acceptable to an en- 
lightened judgment, that it contains no mysticism, or cloudy 



PREFACE. XIX 

philosophy, nor, so far as I am aware, any metaphysical 
absurdity whatever. Grave or gay, it is addressed to the good 
sense of those who are in the habit of sober thought. And that 
a poet should ever be understood to be forbidden to \\Tite s'^nse 
in verse, is a megrim, wdiich could have been conceived only 
in a very unpoetical age indeed. At all events, whether its 
speculations are to be counted really useful or otherwise, — 
amidst much modern literature which is worthless, and much 
more, I fear, which is absolutely pernicious, — they are at least 
ennobled by one distinction, that they present nothing which 
can make any mind more frivolous, or a single heart more 
corrupt. 



CULTURE 



'T IS said some orator of ancient name 
Chose for his theme Alcides and his fame ; 
No axiom clearer, as he proved how great 
Alcides, long beyond the reach of fate. 
His labors ages o'er, and he confest 
A demigod, secm-e, and mth the blest ! 
'Till that shrewd stander-by, who seldom fails 
To act his ready part in ancient tales, 
(Deeming, perchance, an old renown, which long 
Had woke the legend and inspired the song, 
Scarce left much untried flight for fancy's wing. 
But might be counted for a settled thing,) 
Liquu-ed, Why eulogize, since no man blamed 
The hero all have praised and none defamed ? 

Yet let me trust no question nice and sage, 
Like this, shall scrutinize my modest page ; 
A thankless quest it were for things unknown, 
Since ai*t and nature have so common grown ; 
3 



22 



And oft in specious novelties we find 
Less fruit of judgment than a waste of mind ; 
As foam and fmy do but serve to show 
How shallow, not how deep the stream below, 
Or distant rocks may shine like burnished gold, 
That, nearer seen, are ban-en, bleak and cold ; 
And well content, be mine the nobler praise, 
Old truths, though homely, to defend and raise. 

Culture the theme that floats my strain along, 
A seemly subject for a generous song! 
Yet why requne the dedicated rhyme 
To gild this flower and glory of the time ? 
Dulness is out of date, since science meets 
Compeers at all the corners of the streets ; 
Our sires were honest men, but had then day. 
And the gTeen lam*el has discrowned the gray ; 
They plucked the flower, but we enjoy the fruit,— 
A wise good world, indeed, 't is past dispute ! 
The gauntlet fling of an enlightened age, — 
What venturous champion lifts the battle-gage ? 

Yes, 't is an age of much pretence, indeed. 
Too much in haste to think, and yet we read ; 
This one the solid substance of reviews, 
And that, at least price-currents and the news! 
Or, since "wild thoughts by worldly times are bred, 
As superstition reigns when faith is dead, 



23 



And folly, even in error, seeks relief 

From days too practical for sound belief, 

.The struggling spirit, hard to be controlled, 

Bathes in transcendent dews its finer mould. 

And flows in oracles, whose thought intense 

Escapes the grasp of merely human sense I 

Yet while some New2:ate felon's base career 

Or Gaul's wild nonsense draws the worthless tear, 

And many a speculation skims its round, * 

The shallowest most when most it seems profound, 

How tedious grows the page, whose nobler art, 

IMight wake the bmiiing mind and swell the heart ! 

To some, indeed, a book were dull pretence. 
And learning's self might pass for lack of sense ; 
Chained to the world's routine, that every day 
With labored effort seems but sadly gay. 
They feel no breezy speculations roll 
That stu* the stagnant current of the soul, 
Nor lire of heaven, that will not come unsought, 
Upon their spirit's altar kindles thought. 
Were all like these, the world's unsocial face 
Had lacked the charm of every dearest gi-ace ; 
No cultured sweets had cheered the savage wild, 
Nor sovereign art on subject nature smiled. 
The wants of mere existence, few and small, 
The roamer of the waste supplies them all ; 



M 



Were this enough, nor Sovereign Good designed 
Expanding treasures for the opening mind, 
He had not spread with beauties new and strange, 
The untrod mountain and the forest range ; 
"Winged the sweet breath that dies in deserts rude, 
Or hung the lily trembling in the wood ; 
Bid the bright bell imbloomed in purple rise. 
Or living gold look up to lonely sides ; 
Dressed secret nature in her tangled bowers, 
And crowned her glorious with unheeded flowers ! 

No, 't is the course of heaven's ennobling plan, 
That IMind supreme shall vindicate the man, 
Bid him from cultured thought enjoyment draw. 
And find his happiness his being's law ! 
Rob him of this, behold he naked stands 
A tented Arab on his parching sands ; 
Or roams a wanderer through the lonely woods 
Where rock-born Oregon rolls down his floods ; 
Or, still barbarian in the haunts of men. 
The spire-crowned city as the mountain-den, 
The wretch to nature's best emotions cold. 
The train of folly and the slave of gold. 

But this the triumph of eternal mind. 
That levels to its worth all human kind, 
Asserts its own great element of bh'th 
And keeps it sovereign over subject earth. 



25 



This tears away the filmy veil that clings, 
A floating shadow, round the shows of things ; 
From cultured life averts that fixed control, 
Mere matter's empire in the untaught soul ; 
Rates at its value fortune's gilded dower. 
And wrings the truncheon from the grasp of power : 
Selfish and social evil dares disarm, 
And gives life all its value and its charm ; 
Fills it with objects worthy life's command, 
Gleams in the eye and guides the curious hand. 
This flings the sunbeam on thy dusky sails, 
That risk the ventures of a thousand gales, 
Throbs in the lordly merchant's crowded mart, 
And swells the manly seaman's sterling heart; 
This rears the stately dome, the marbled hall, 
And breathes with genius on the pictured wall ; 
Cxives to the flying car its headlong force. 
And speeds the ocean-steamer on her course ; 
Through varied life's ascending channel flows, 
And builds a temple where a hovel rose I 

Not that a palace shields the loftiest head 
]More than the rudest cottar's mountain-shed ; 
Nor that the lake and stream and hill afford 
Less plenteous fare than decks the daintiest board ; 
But that a wider empke has been wrought 
By all the sage conceived, the poet thought ! 
3^ 



26 



In ocean's isles, beneath the orient beam, 

A nail were richer than an ingot's gleam ; 

And the red huntress, on her native wild, 

Of gewgaws vain, the prairie's simple child ! 

Thinks the poor toys her jetty tresses deck 

Rich as the pearls on beauty's faker neck. 

'Tis conquering genius gilds the dazzling prize 

That lures the eager and attracts the wise ; 

And gold itself, this right the world makes wrong, 

Owes half its magic to the poet's song ! 

But for his lay and what the musing sage 

Speaks to the spuit, on the living page. 

No fairy hand had dressed the sylvan waste, 

Nor generous culture bloomed in realms of taste ; 

As clouds have veiled the light of other days, 

And man forever sinks where thought decays, 

We still had roamed, to art and natm-e blind. 

Nor grace had charmed, nor fancy cheered the mind 

What though the sophist choose his idle theme, 
And weave of untaught bliss the empty dream ; 
By cultured paths we reach the gates of iTuth 
That guard the v/aters of immortal youth, 
And find the key, harmonious to unfold 
Those pearly portals to the fount of gold ; 
Learn that first science, fit to be pursued, 
To shun the evil and discern the 2^0 od, 



27 



And all that else can fill the noble mind, 
That courts not marble nor invites the wind. 

And though the world its motley livery wears, 
Nor clasps its pleasm^es closer than its cares, 
Thriftless it were to lose what life we call, 
If cares or pleasures should absorb it aU ; 
To fold the pinions of our native flight. 
And sit in darkness w^ith the brooding night. 

Far nobler hopes the generous mind inspire 

And warm its purpose with a holier fire ; 

This life, a sullen tide, resistless flows. 

Whose secret depths no sounding plummet knows ; 

The sm-face bright with hues of purpling bloom. 

Beneath, the chambers of an unknown gloom ; 

And since, wliile round the flowery banlv we play. 

Some under-current sweeps us quite away, 

It were but wise to estimate the worth 

Of our great heh'ship of immortal birth ; 

To clasp some buoyant thing no waves control, 

Nor give the w^orld the mastery of tlie soul. 

And we, immortal-born and charter-free 
To shape our course across this boundless sea, 
Freighted with hopes of more exceeding worth 
Than all that dazzles and bewilders earth, 



28 



Say, shall we float, secure but lost, along, 
Lulled by the treacherous wave's deceitful song, 
Mark the perfidious shoal, where breakers roar, 
Yet strand the ship upon the fatal shore ? 
Or crowd our canvass to the favoring wind, 
Leave the false seas and siren-isles behind. 
Frail but yet safe our bark, that still for home 
Bounds on her course and cuts the dreadless foam, 
Mounts o'er the wave and catches, as she springs, 
Heaven's opening glories on her streaming wings ! 

These outward things that life's poor wishes bend. 
The wise man's means and only folly's end, 
Fame, fortune, power, and all their shifting train. 
That cheat our giddy race and cheat in vain, 
Swift as the scud, that o'er the brightening moon 
Scarce veils her face, it sweeps away so soon. 
No grasp could firmly hold since time began. 
These borrowed trappings of the nobler man. 

No statesman crowned with all his hope could yield. 

No conquering soldier on the fiery field. 

No merchant-prince, whose laden galleons glide 

Safe to then haven with the smiling tide ; 

But own, beyond the moment's bliss enjoyed, 

Some rising wish and still recurring void, 

Not conquest fills, nor empne's regal robe, 

Nor all the glistening bullion of the globe. 



2§ 



Aiid Avliere this bounding, brimming, sparkling life 

Veils the heart-fever and the spirit's strife. 

O'er the bright bubble and the dancing foam 

Unwelcome clouds will fall and shadows come ; 

The fibres fail — the nerves relaxing jar, 

And the soul sickens in the selfish war. 

But if an inner shrine the spirit knows. 

Thither it turns and seeks no vain repose. 

As hearts that feel their mortal cares decay, 

In the sweet stillness of the sabbath-day. 

And if the mind its copious draughts inspire 
At the pure fountains of perennial fire. 
By generous lore and manly thought supplied, 
That gush a living and exhauslless tide ; 
Unshaken still and incorrupt it stands, 
And gathered force its native strength expands, 
And finds such sober solace of delight 
Sweeten the day and sanctify the night. 
Sustained by this the soul replumes its wing ; 
Absent, and life, methinks a cheerless thing, 
Has scarce a show to sadden o'er its stage 
Like worldly manhood shrunk to vacant age ! 

Walpole, avowed upon the file of fame 
By every muse, at least a doubtful name ; 
Driven from the politician's jobbing trade, 
"When faction had unmade what first it made, 



80 



Relieved from base corruption's servile art, 
Felt life a burthen at his stagnant heart ; 
Looked on its varnish with a jaundiced eye 
And dared pronounce all history a lie ; 
Though long ere Hume his James or Charles had 

shown, 
Or Alison had writ republics down ! 
AVith much still left to dignify decline. 
In listless solitude prefered to pine ; 
Found not for him that peace in Houghton's bowers 
"Which breathes o'er forests and exhales from flowers ; 
Threw hooks away, and 'mid ennui and gout 
Fretted and sighed life's lingering taper out ! 

Fit retribution for the falsely great, 

"When false ambition justifies its fate. 

The cankered mind by treacherous doubts misled, 

And withered lam'els for a withering head! 

Better the German Cesar's beads to tell. 

And find enough for empire in a cell ; 

Or, with Gaul's captive eagle, clank his chain 

Chimed to the surge beyond the hopeless main ! 

Even Hastings, rich in spoils of guilty gold, 

Ransom of ruined states and princedoms sold, 

Shook from his heart, beneath the tropic sun. 

The staggering curse of power unjustly won. 

And gave his mind, what power but rarely yields, 

To studious leisure in his native fields ; 



31 



Asked of the muse to breathe round nature's close 
Some sacred whisper, friendly to repose, 
And half forgot, enchanted with her tone, 
All plundered India's universal groan ! 

And thou, whose tardy spring no blossoms cheer, 

But all seems winter-season in thy year. 

Let thy worn heart throb backwards to its prime, 

And breathe some spirit of the summer time I 

What though the world's unspiritual cares 

To narrow thoughts would bound and mean affairs, 

O pause awhile, ere yet the jostling strife 

Crumble this baseless scaffolding of life. 

And homeward win those thoughts that charmed away, 

With golden dreams thy childhood's holiday ! 

But yet, to keep the conscience undefiled, 

The judgment clear, nor reason's self beguiled. 

Seek not the flippant and debasing page, 

That marks the trivial humor of the age, 

And fain would leave us little to deplore, 

When steadfast thought and feelhig are no more. 

Nor yet devote thy Vvdiole of studious days 

To Fancy's themes which innocence might praise. 

Whose pm-er thoughts in flowery bands have knit 

The heart of genius to the soul of wit. 

Life, unamused, were scarcely worth its price, 

And care-w^orn virtue lives next door to vice ; 



But to give all to pastime would control 
The sober instincts of the reasoning soul. 
As wine, that often bids the heart expand, 
And full of bounty prompts the open hand, 
A generous thing, indeed, if used aright, 
Perverted, clouds the mind and dims the sight. 



But since our virtues only live by toil, 

While vice spontaneous springs in every soil. 

Would you, betimes, a solid barrier form 

Against life's follies and confront its storm. 

With balanced powers well-rallied to resist 

The banded charlatan and sciolist, — ■ 

On the world's ample annals, deep and vast, 

Rich in the wise experience of the past, 

Muse to some end, as mingle with thy dreams 

Earth's highest objects, Pleaven's ennobling themes! 

Or dwell with sage philosophies, that find 

And sound the w^ell-springs of the human mind ; 

Nor vainly judging that the noblest art. 

By genius swayed to raise and mend the heart, 

Enraptured hang upon the living line 

Which Idngs and statesmen long have deemed divine, 

Victorious yet to glorify a throne. 

Or vest a hut with graces all its own ! 

Or turn, as turned from Mersey's burthened tide, 

Triumphant trade, its glitter and its pride, 



33 



Roscoe, no slave to sordid splendor sold 
And bent, a pilgrim, at the shrines of old ; 
Saw the advancing morn with softening light, 
Dissolve the shade and melt incumbent night, 
When fu'st reviving Learning's orient day 
Shone on ten gloomy centm'ies rolled away, 
And drew such colors from the gorgeous scene 
As told the story of the Florentine. 

And though om' era, gi*own too strangely wise, 
Rejects the Past, the Present deifies, 
And Time's old oracles to ruin hmied. 
Confound a restless and unstable world ; 
And our new hariolations might approve 
As well the Delphian as the Orphic grove. 
So close allied to heathendom their aim, 
So little kindred to the christian name ! 
Though our presumptuous, vain and heady youth 
Quite oveiTides the humble graybeard. Truth! 
Of this be certain, for a lesson tried. 
If human pride be weakness, such our pride ; 
In spite of prophets most profoundly blind, 
A circling limit bounds the human mind ; 
And mysteries still our sons shall mysteries know, 
As Plato knew, two thousand years ago ; 
Still, darldy bright, the folded cloud embrace 
Glories too great for mortals face to face ! 
4 



34 



Ajad, as the rustic by the flowing tide 
"Waited, vain fool ! to find its channels dried, 
So men, 'till heaven's secure foundation nods, 
May wait, and dream, but never can be gods ! 

And since brave men and many, long before 
ICing Agamemnon, trod the Trojan shore, 
It were no stretch of reason to conclude 
Men quite as wise as we, perhaps, as good, 
Breathed, thought and felt in Age's primal time, 
Who sleep forgotten by the sacred rhyme ; 
Had questioned nature in her secret cells. 
And sounded inspiration's deepest wells ; 
Knew all we know, what force mysterious guides 
The world-old wonder of the rolling tides ; 
As well how flames Aurora's polar ray. 
And the sAveet marvel of the Milky Way ; 
By what strange fire the red volcano gleams. 
On what wild path the spectral comet streams I 
Yes, though with added wings o'er earth we fly, 
No art too deep, nor science seem too high, 
Just such as we, the fools of human pride. 
Vaunted their feeble strength and heaven defied ! 
On Shinar heaved the ponderous tower in vain, 
Their nameless fabrics piled on Cairo's plain ; 
Unerring drew each constellated star. 
The Zodiac-gems of desert Denderah ; 



35 



For the wise monarch reared with unknown skill 

The noiseless stones on Zion's templed hill, 

And wrought the pillared rock that crowns in state 

The Idumean road by Bozrah's gate ! 

How shamed the feebler labors of our hands 

By gray memorials sti-ewn o'er well-sung lands I 

As looks a monarch from his living crowd 

Less awful than a beggar in his shroud, 

No living art like that which desert glooms 

Show great in ruin, glorious in their tombs. 

Thy moral natm-e may advancing rise 
And claim its lost perfection in the sides ; 
But check the better soul's aspiring wing 
And the mind's progi-ess is a fearful thing ! 
If kinder feeling \\dn no added gi'ace. 
Our best refinements only make us base. 
Round Reason's shrine the mad Parisian trod, 
And polished Athens served an unknown God ; 
But hell's dark precincts can reveal alone 
The whole that mind without a heart has done ! 
And though thy keels come laden to the shore, 
"With freight more precious than the vu'gin ore ; 
Thine ivory halls with diamonds shine inlaid, 
And peerless porphyry build thy colonnade ; 
Though thy capacious intellect has ^^Tought 
Consummate perfectness from subtle thought, 



m 



And all earth, sea and sky could teach thee, hung 
With all an angel's accents on thy tongue ; 
Be these the boasted glories of the State, 
And faithful Time has chronicled its fate ; 
Nor wealth, power, gTandeur, earth's unstable all 
That ever built an empke stayed its fall I 

I ask no veil, by vague abstraction wrought. 

To cloud the purpose of transparent thought ; 

The soul's unfilled desires shall bid it pant, 

Till a true culture meet the social want, 

Nor needs the student of the heathen page 

Blush for the vulues of a christian age. 

Let smooth-tongued disputants, in grave debate, 

Phrase round and round the world's ' transition-state 

The social mind with reasoning ckcles wake, 

As boys with pebbles stk a sleeping lake ; 

Look with his eyes who saw the laboring sun, 

And said, "t is only a phenomenon.' 

But in a changeful world of wild unrest, 

The end of ' movement ' were the gTaver quest ! 

To ask if life improve, or ' progress ' nurse 

The world's old illness into something worse ; 

Not speculate with folded arms, but feel 

Each good man's effort must secure its weal. 

And ere that day approach, which Heaven forefend, 
(The doting world declining to its end,) 



37 



When social life's corrupted forces draw- 
Relaxing morals down with loosened law ; 
And standard Truth, almost immoral grown, 
Each watling makes a standard of his own ; 
When cold refinements fritter faith away, 
Nor tested honor hides the ti"ue assay ; 
The statesman's heart by venal schemes engrossed, 
The rich man's conscience slumbering at its post ; 
The common mind by countless follies vexed, 
And the world's heart bewdldered and perplexed; 
Though, in this fiery conflict, never still, 
Waged on the powers of good by powers of ill, 
All Armageddon's adverse ranks combine. 
If one firm phalanx hold our shaking line, — s 
Then, as the leader of a wavering host 
Must snatch the moment, or the field is lost, 
And risking all, his more than all to gain. 
He flings his last battahon on the plain, < — ^ 
Then were the time for every manly breast 
To try this issue, nobly worth the test, • — 
Has God ordained, or does but man pervert 
Expanding powder of good to fatal hurt ? 
Is knowledge. Evil — Vice refinement's sw^ay ? 
JMust Wealth corrupt and Empire be Decay ? 

Count not my verse too serious or too free, 
Poets are moralists, or ought to be ; 
4^ 



38 



It is the high prerogative of rhyme, 
With sounding truth to moralize the time ; 
And they, like prophets, should be very bold, 
Who rouse the dull and animate the cold ; 
And thus inspired, their names, in every age, 
Stand out the brightest on the brightest page. 
'Tis the time's cant to scorn the muse's wing, 
And reckon verse, at best, an idle thing. 
Though, in a world of fading dreams, alone 
She makes them brighter, or revives them gone I 
'Tis some excuse, when poets by thek song 
Scarce help to vindicate the muse's wrong, 
Stoop to their age, its judgment antedate, 
And bending to the sentence court then: fate. 

And ours, I fear, is no heroic time. 

For honor, truth, love, manhood, and the rhyme ; 

And oft, when all responsive chords are mute, 

The heart but faints upon the dying lute. 

Cnrtius himself, were he alive again. 

Unsung might leap the yawning gulph in vain, 

And scarce would ring to sti'ains of chorded joy 

Another Helen in another Troy ! 

O, that some breath of heaven's diviner glow, 

Full of the tuneful soul of long ago. 

Might sweep this tideless wave, so icy cold, 

And stir our buried hearts with thoughts of old I 



89 



And ye, to whom in vain the fields appear, 
When flowers and sunshine dress the varied year, 
And vainly rings in melody along 
The careless carol of the wUd-bird's sons: ; 
Who pine amid the city's feverish fret. 
And feel life wear awo.y one long regret, 
Forever gTasping at some, gilded sin, 
The prize but lost to lure the hope to win ; 
Whose restless toils, that taslt the laboring heart, 
Crowd out the reeling brain's diviner part ; 
Who mar too soon God's glorious image, lent 
With noble powers, for every high intent. 
Nor find the gi-een old age whose calm repays 
Obedient wishes and contented days ; 
Would that my verse, in nature's languid hours, 
Might come like incense of untoiling flowers. 
Some roundelay of careless birds might bring. 
Stored in the garnered heart of memory's spring ! 

And ye, who float along those shining bowers, 
Where^ mirth and music wing the roseate hours. 
Whose thoughts, if thoughts they be, intrusive time 
Cheat with unmeaning prose and vapid rhyme ; 
Though no wild fancy flaunt along my line, 
The harp-strings answer to a voice divine ! 
Behold a field where one but weeds shall meet, 
While others pluck the wild-flowers at then' feet. 



40 



A rugged quarry, rough with truth unknown, 
Where this one finds a gem and that a stone. 
And oh, in reahns which beauty deigns to grace, 
If lay Uke mine may dare assert a place. 
Though flattery scarcely on the measure swell 
Nor strains melodious court a golden shell, — 
Yet there, last hope ! still reign the muse's art, 
To fling no vain enchantment round the heart. 
There still the power, unselfish and supreme, 
Throw all hfe knows of magic o'er the dream ! 
And, as of old, the valiant knight in arms 
His treasure found in virtue joined with charms, 
And beauty scorned the selfish thought that weighed 
Her and her dowry by the laws of trade. 
Be still one priceless thing beneath the sky, 
A woman's heart, which gold can never buy ! 

And thou, fair city of the western wave, 

Built on the forest-hunter's vanished grave, 

Thou, whose whole story is a lesson taught. 

How vanquished nature yields to conquering thought 

As down their vista all thy years unveil, 

Fain would my heart prophetic read thy tale ! 

A richer wealth than sea-born Venice bore, 

A nobler dower than golden Florence wore, 

No art has wrought it and no price can buy 

With Ophir's wedge, or Tyre's imperial dye, — 



41 



Daughters to grace and sons that build the state 
With deep foundations laid exempt from fate, 
Vntue its wealth and stable blessing given, 
Would man accept it, from indulgent Heaven ! 

O, law of happiness, misunderstood ! 

O, vague ideal of substantial good ! 

O game of life, that played with skill would tend 

To win this solid prize, its real end ; 

Find the lost Goon, so long by sages sought. 

Life's simplest lesson and its brightest thought. 

That makes us happy only as we move 

In sober concert with the law of love. 

And happiness impossible to find 

In the mean purpose of the gTovelling mind ! 

Thus to perfect, in heaven's eternal plan. 

That noble thing, a thinking, feeling man, 

No talent wasted and no duty left. 

Nor life a vacant dream of hope bereft ; 

For this to live, and oh, for this to die. 

Since earth has nothing further worth a sigh. 

Oh, win true culture, worth immortal toil. 

Nor lose thyself, the world's too easy spoil ! 

But since, like flowers that spring beneath our feet, 
Om' duties lie around us fresh and sweet, 
These to embellish and adorn with grace, 
Bear every wreath away, in every race ; 



42 

Seek wealth, if riches can afford thee rest, -— 
Power, if one human heart it ever blest, — 
Yet be not like those combatants unwise, 
Who snatch the glory but neglect the prize ; 
Nor Hke the hireling soldier, for his pay, 
But some fair leaf of honor take away ; 
Act with the just, the generous and the brave, 
Toil for the world, its master not its slave ; 
Be that reformer, true as well as warm, 
Whose chief ambition is his own reform ; 
Prepare thy harness, knightly-proof, and strive, 
With manful spirit, to keep life alive, 
And make it thoughtful, but as sweet and bright, 
As summer moonrise on the sober night ; 
Or like the fireside of thy hopes and fears. 
Where sunshine congregates with all thy tears I 
And though around thee every hollow breath 
Of the world's sm-ges hoarsely murmur, ' Death ! ' 
Thy soul shall still, heard through the stormy strife. 
Toned to a sweeter cadence, whisper, ' Life ! ' 



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